Witch
Witches in folklore Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch (from Old English wicca masculine, wicce feminine) is a practitioner of witchcraft. Historically, it was widely believed in early modern Christian Europe that witches were in leagues with the Devil and used their powers to harm people and property. Particularly, since the mid-20th century, "bad" and "good" witchcraft are sometimes distinguished, the latter often involving healing. The concept of witchcraft as harmful is normally treated as a cultural ideology, a means of explaining human misfortune by blaming it either on a supernatural entity or a known person in the community. Beliefs in witchcraft, and resulting witch-hunts, are both found in many cultures worldwide, today mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., in the witch smellers in Bantu culture), and historically notably in Early Modern Europe of the 14th to 18th century, where witchcraft came to be seen as a vast diabolical conspiracy against Christianity, and accusations of witchcraft led to large-scale witch-hunts, especially in Germanic Europe. The "witch-cult hypothesis", a controversial theory that European witchcraft was a suppressed pagan religion, was popular in the 19th and 20th centuries. Since the mid-20th century, Witchcraft has become the self-designation of a branch of neopaganism, especially in the Wicca tradition following Gerald Gardner, who claimed a religious tradition of Witchcraft with pre-Christian roots. Law against witchcraft In Mesopotamia witchcraft was officially prohibited and persecuted; the Hammurabi Code (ca 1772 BC) stated that a person accused of witchcraft undergoes "trial of river"; if found guilty, accusing party claims his\her possessions, otherwise the accusing party is convicted to death. A set of eight cuneiform tablets entitled Burning contains instructions for witch persecution. In Hittite empire witchcraft was prohibited, and witches were persecuted. Hittite king Hatusilli I (1650 - 1620 BC) deemed some women around him witches using witchcraft in politics; king Telipinu (ca 1525 BC) gave a proclamation against witches; king Suppiluliuma I (1380-1345 BC) in the peace treaty with Mitanni promised never use magical plant against them; accusation in witchcraft was quite frequent instrument in politics. The Bible - both Old Testaments (Exo 22:18, Deu 18:10 - 18:12, Nah 3:4, Mic 5:12, Reg4 9:22, Sa1 15:23) and New Testaments (Gal 5:20) regards witchcraft as a crime. Witch trials in Europe Pope Innocent VIII in 1484 declared that witchcraft by consorting with devils (succubi and incubi) occurs in North Germany. In response Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger prepared Malleus Maleficarum (1489), a comprehensive theory of witchcraft derived from Scripture. It was believed that while a man - a black magician - can conjure up infernal powers and hold them in servitude to use his power to perform magic, women are inferior and submit to devil. Unlike the witch, who is slave to devil, the magician commands. Therefore a wizard can be beneficent or harmful, while witch can only fornicate, poison, destroy. Witches were supposed to conduct orgiastic sabbath ceremonies with participation of a devil in a form of a goat or a cat. Ulrich Molitor, the well-known legal authority from Constance, illustrates his report on lamias Von den Unholden oder Hexen... (1498) with crude woodcut of two witches and a devil or wizard riding together upon a fork, having heads of an ass, a hawk and a calf. It was generally accepted that witches could transform themselves into animals. By XVII century witch persecution became an industry. It employed judges, jailers, torturers, exorcists, wood-choppers, scribes and experts. Abolition of the witch trials would have caused an economic crisis. Category:Species Category:Unknown Origin